2020 Miscellaneous College Football News

[homer]

Pittsburgh coach Johnny Majors reportedly gave scholarships to 90 freshmen in 1973, a move that came under scrutiny when the Panthers won the national championship in 1977. In response, the NCAA tried to ensure some equity of competition within particular sports.

[Jimbo]

The 85 scholarship reduction is probably the way to really make a dent. If I recall correctly, and an older person feel free to correct if I'm wrong, but I believe that was what was done say 40ish years ago to spread things out. Either there was no limit or the limit was really high, so teams like Nebraska/Bama back in the day would just take everybody just so other couldn't have them. Then that limit of some kind was put in to stop that.

 

Well, I'm 54. Michigan and Ohio State dominated the Midwest in the 70's. I don't know the logistics, but I think the limit was in the 90's(?) Whenever it was reduced to 85, that opened the door for other schools (ahem, Wisconsin) to become competitive.

[wildcat83]

Markese Stepp transfers to Nebraska instead of Wisconsin.

[HiAndTight]

Making every scholarship four years might help. Would stop schools from overrecruiting. As it stands they are renewed annually so if you're at Alabama and they can recruit some dude better than you they'll politely tell you to transfer.

I’m with you there. For as much money as these programs generate with low cost labor, the least they could do would be guarantee their scholarship and stipend for 4 years (provided they remain in good standing).

 

 

This is the most obvious and usually the route they go with their true blue-chippers.

[HiAndTight]

Pittsburgh coach Johnny Majors reportedly gave scholarships to 90 freshmen in 1973, a move that came under scrutiny when the Panthers won the national championship in 1977. In response, the NCAA tried to ensure some equity of competition within particular sports.

 

 

Right...as I mentioned in this thread or another, Bear Bryant was the first coach to really do this. He'd have rosters with 250 guys on scholarship.

 

It's also why when someone asked if Coan may be going to ND on a Lax scholarship but planning to play FB, I pointed out that was against the rules. You can play the 2nd sport if you're on a FB scholarship, not the other way around. Like I said in that thread, Alabama would suddenly field a Wrestling team with a whole lot of 4-star recruits who were not very good wrestlers.

 

I don't think cutting the scholarships anymore is really the answer though. As it is, you're talking about 22 guys each class on scholarship. How far do you cut it before you think it's fair?

 

60? Then you have 15 yearly on average?

 

I don't think Alabama is SO dominant because of the number of scholarships. That was a floundering program when Saban came back....they were 4-9, 6-6, 6-7, and 7-6 in Saban's first year.

 

LSU was 7-15 the two years before Saban got there.

 

Mich State was bad before Saban got THERE...going 3-8 and coming off a 4-year run in which they were under .500.

 

So in Alabama's case, they just took a Belichick disciple and HE built maybe the greatest dynasty in CFB.

 

 

There's really no way to level out the playing field in CFB. The best you can do is try and put the right HC in place, do your best to put a fence around your own state(that state being loaded in talent helps) try and build the right way and then hope you can grab some talent from other area's.

 

I think Chryst is doing about as good as you can expect out of him and I'm kinda resigned to the fact that either one fluke year everything lines up(like it nearly did with Watt and Wilson's class)...and beyond that, just root for some B1G title games and hope we can play OSU well.

 

 

Losing Markese Stepp really sucks though. He could have been a major piece of the puzzle the next couple years. Guessing there were some issues with him academically. There's generally been the issue when a recruit flips from UW to MSU, or NeB in the past. I can't imagine he looked at the OL Wisconsin is building, the offense we have and thought Nb was the better school to get him ready for the NFL.

[nodakfan17]

When FCS football was moved to the Spring, I wondered if it would garner more interest than usual now that it was (temporarily) out of the shadow of the NFL and FBS football - sort of like how the XFL was a novelty for sports fans in between the Super Bowl and March Madness.